


Soft Bones and Sweet Scales

by AmeMaltsain



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Underswap, Anxiety, Awkwardness, Depression, F/F, Insomnia, Other, Post-Undertale Pacifist Route, Rating will change, Reader's gender is as you please, Slice of Life, Tried to make it the more neutral I could, getting used to tags and rating, introvert reader, mostly introvert, neutral!reader
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-10-01 22:01:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10201655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmeMaltsain/pseuds/AmeMaltsain
Summary: You are a student who lives by yourself in a small appartment and to do so have, of course, to work. Sometimes it gets hard, overwhelming even. You hate to admit it but it is the way it his. Your everyday life has nothing special in it, you just study, work and struggle to sleep... well.. until you meet a very nice skeleton monster who decides that you will be his new friend and slithers himself into your life bringing along his brother and all of his own  friends.*Yep that's it for now because i don't even know where this is really going xD there will be a lot of changes in the tags and rating so sorry for that.*





	1. Insomnia, Lists and a NEW FRIEND!

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! First fic here so don't hesitate to let me know if you have any tips about anything! English is not my native language so heee if you see any mistakes or poor/inadequate phrasing it would be cool to let me know! I had no beta reading this so yeah.. I apologise in advance xD  
> Hope you like it !

*This chapter is rather short and more of some sort of introduction, i hope you like it!*

 

~~~  

 

   Laying down on your bed over your blanket, you were staring at the roof of your room with a distracted gaze. You took a deep breath closing your eyes. The air that slowly filled your lungs was fresh, which was not surprising in February. Yeah winter and all.. tends to be cold. Then you exhaled, opening your eyes. You admired silently the soft reflexion of the moonlight in the round white lamp hanging above you. No sound could be heard coming from the outside, everything was still. While the night seemed unusually peaceful you certainly were not! Stress filled your mind and body making you tense and unable to fall asleep. Trying to calm down you had begun breathing in and out repeatedly almost two hours ago. 

   Your were kept awake by one thought only: your first day at work. It was tomorrow and it made you feel very anxious. You had a hard time keeping a steady job since you started to go to the university. During the day you went to class and in the afternoon you worked. That’s how you managed to live by yourself. Unfortunately you suffered from insomnia quiet regularly and your ex-bosses usually didn't like very much the fact that their employee was totally sleep deprived and of course as a consequence distracted and less productive. You knew you couldn't afford to loose your new position, it was a job as a waitress and that was a lot better than nothing! It would allow you not to live on the street. Eventually you begun to imagine everything that could go wrong: “what if I am late on my first day? Oh and what if my boss is mean to his employees? The worst would be to spill a drink on a customer ooooh no that would REALLY be bad!” You sighed, you knew over thinking wouldn’t help but you couldn't stop it, you were so clumsy sometimes so a job as a waitress was a bit intimidating.

   You kept breathing and trying to relax in order to get the rest you needed to kick some ass tomorrow and suddenly:

"BANG!"

   The loud noise made you jump up in surprise. It came from above you. You guessed it was from your neighbor's apartment.

"Are you alright Mr. Kurn?"

You said loud enough for him to hear your voice. Other rather metallic sounds made their way to your ears and then he answered with his deep gentle voice:

"Yes y/n don't worry! I just fell from my bed"

You chuckled lightly, imagining Mr. Kurn, a huge reptile monster, falling from his bed which, as you pictured it, was probably too small for him. The dark green scales from his body were probably the reason why his fall sounded like a damn car crash. You laid down again smiling. Having this quick exchange with Mr. Kurn made your mind drift and you found yourself thinking about the resent events that made you realize that maybe you had a reason not to loose all hope on humans, yeah on your own species. Let's admit it.. humans did a lot of shit.

   There were only been a few months since the barrier was broken and freed the monsters from the underground were they used to be trapped. When you saw it on the news you were immediately nervous. Of course you were surprised, how could someone not be? But the nervousness was not about the monsters, they all seemed peaceful and kind, but about humanity's reaction. Some people could be really damn stupid and fear often changed people, making them more aggressive and dangerous. But to your great and wonderful surprise laws giving monsters the same rights as humans were very quickly put in place and discrimination against them was not as common as you expected. Of course there were monstrophobics but well.. nothing could be perfect could it? And with this though sleep got you by surprise, like a ninja hiding in the dark, and you dreamed about magic and having magnificent silver and black scales that sounded like bells when you moved.

 

~~~

 

   In the morning the clock wouldn't stop ringing. You wiggled your arm desperately trying to reach it on the night table on your left. When in an immense effort you finally got it, you turned it of and sat up. You hadn’t slept that bad! Walking to your bathroom, you begun your morning routine. After you were finished, you grabbed an apple and walked down the stairs of your building, after closing your door. Walking to your university was always nice, it was a 15 minutes walk and the streets were bordered by cute stone houses and beautiful large trees, that at this time of year were leafless. Your breath created little clouds in the air and you smiled ignoring the fast beat of your heart. Maybe you were still a little bit stressed but you needed to focus during class so you just walked the snowy path distracting yourself as much as possible. Everything would be fine! 

   Except well.. Everything didn't go as you planned. You were a bit too dreamy during your morning walk and missed the time. You arrived late at your class and as if missing 10 minutes of it wasn't bad enough (yeah you had the kind of teacher that in 10 minutes goes over a whole subject) the teacher who must have been in an incredibly shitty mood decided to do a surprise test. So in fact you lost 10 minutes of a test that you didn't even studied for. So great. And on top of that you were so anxious that you couldn’t concentrate, you didn’t understand half of what your teacher was saying about the phylogenetic tree and you forgot to take notes sometimes. Walking out at 15:00 you were now pissed of. You started to work at the Salty Moon Cafe at 16:00 today which gave you time to go to your apartment to drop your bag and calm down before going to work. The Cafe was only 20 minutes away from your home and this was really good because it saved you time that you could use to study and also, when you got lazy, watch series, animes or read a good book. After stopping by at home you made your way to the center of the district you lived in. After some time you heard people laughing and talking loudly and saw your destination, the Cafe. It was pretty big and seemed quiet nice. The jazzy music that came out of it by the opened door when people entered it was awesome. Putting yourself together you crossed the door and marched to the bar feeling determined.

" Hi, my name is y/n! I'm the waitress supposed to come in today" you announced smiling to the barista.

He was taller then you and had dark hair, his dreadlocks hid is face and when he lifted it up you noticed that he had sharp teeth, dark purple skin, no nose and a very wide almost scary smile.

"Oh y/n! Loria told me she had hired a human to work here, I'm glad! Sometimes the costumers order things we didn't even knew existed and it is not very professional to ask them how to make it you know." he paused smiling at you and continued: " So as a start today please do a list of the most common human drinks and snacks and how to make them so we can serve everyone here!"

The monster put paper and a pen in front of you and added : 

"Take a sit at the bar and ah! call me Om." 

And with that he left. You spend two hours writing down different ways of making coffee and the most common cocktails as well as burgers, fries and different snacks. When the clock hit 18:00 Om came back thanked you and asked you if you could do more of this lists at home, of course your answer was yes.

   Your day at the university might have been the worst but your first day at work was delightful! Writing about food in a nice place with good music, it didn't even sounded like work. You weren’t walking back home but bouncing back home. You knew that when the night came you wouldn’t feel so good so you enjoyed it while it lasted. You gave a sharp turn at the and of a street, the snow was a little bit melted and what had to happen happened. You fell with a small scream of surprise as you slipped. But you didn’t hit the ground, instead you found yourself in somebody’s arms. The man was about your height, maybe a bit smaller. You apologized multiple times as you faced him. The man in front of you was a skeleton wearing blue boots and a blue .. cape? Oh no! It was a bandana around his neck that looked like a cape. As you finished your confused apologies. He spoke in a clear but rather loud voice:

“DO NOT WORRY HUMAN! YOU ARE NOT HEAVY AND THEREFOR DIDN’T HURT THE GREAT SANS: ME!”

" hu how.. well okey then" you answered confused, he was an adult .. right? "I'm y/n by the way!" 

You extended your hand to shake his. He smiled as he took your hand in a hard grip. 

"VERY NICE TO MEET YOU!" 

Okey he was an adult for sure despite his enthusiastic ways he didn't have the voice of a child. Looking down you realized there were groceries all over the ground. 

"Oh no!" you exclaimed and began to gather everything.

When you were finished you handed the two plastic bags to him.

"HUMAN! THAT WAS VERY NICE! I THINK THAT WE SHOULD BE FRIENDS, THAT WAY I CAN THANK YOU BY BEING THE BEST FRIEND YOU EVER HAD!"

 You looked at him confused. Was he being serious? He seemed to be but you were afraid this could be a joke. So you asked the first thing that came to your mind:

"For real?"

 You cursed at yourself for only managing two words but come on ! This whole situation was pretty confusing and unexpected.

 "OF COURSE! SO IT IS DECIDED. YOU, HUMAN, ARE MY NEW FRIEND. I THINK WE SHOULD HAVE A SNOW FIGHT TO CELEBRATE THIS FRIENDSHIP!"

And with that he took some snow of the ground and threw it at you giggling and running. You dodged the attack at the last minute and started chuckling, understanding that Sans was completely serious about this. So you both ran up and down the streets of your district, throwing snow at each other and laughing, until it was too dark to stay outside. You exchanged numbers and he promised to you that he would introduce you to his twin brother. Two little hyperactive skeletons? Could you manage that? Well you would have to figure it out later. For know you were taking a shower thinking about what a weird day you just had.

 

~~~

 

* So this is it! yep... weeell chapter two is on a working process but i'm experiencing a nasty writer block *


	2. Friends, a Couch and Fangs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally! I managed to finish this one. I had such a block I don't even now why  
> Weeeeelp hope you'll like it :D

   Your Monday went a lot better then you expected after all. Meeting Sans had filled you with a positive energy that helped you go over all that you hadn’t understood during class today. There had been a great time since your last productive evening. Usually you procrastinated, making a nice diner, reading a book or losing yourself on the internet. This form of distraction didn’t happen because you were lazy, you were hardworking when needed, but because it eased your mind. After a day dealing with teachers, classmates and the outside you needed this brain rest. But this time you found the energy to work so you tied yourself to it and didn’t let go. You were ready to face another surprise test in case your teacher decided to be a bitch again this week. Sitting in your dark blue comfy couch you were writing down the food lists that Om had asked you. Burgers, fries, milkshakes and other delicious foods. This was a nice task even if it made you a little bit hungry. You tried to find easy but good recipes and you underlined the ones you thought were the more interesting. While you were starting on a second page something came to your mind. Calling your childhood friend, Benjamin, seemed like a good idea right now. He studied culinary arts to become a chef so helping you with this list would be as easy as breathing for him. But a year had pasted since your last talk and you didn’t want to disturb him. He had very little time for himself because of his culinary studies and you didn’t want to bother him. He wouldn't mind and probably even be happy to hear some news from you but you couldn't bring yourself to call.

 

   You knew you were not alone, you had a few good friends and a family. Even if they lived a bit far away you could always call them but you didn’t. You never called when you felt bad you just.. fought it. Calling for help seemed so superfluous. After all your weren't depressed.. right? You just had hard times like everyone just a little often and for no obvious reasons. At least that is was what you told yourself. Those thoughts that had made their way to your mind, about loneliness, helplessness started to take your breath off, like they filled your lungs instead of the air that was supposed to. It burned. You slowly put the list down and laid on your back in the couch watching the ceiling. You breathed in but then you didn’t, panic blocked your chest. Damn it.. why? The living room was dark, the silence heavy. “Oh no not today” you though to yourself has the anxiety started to make you feel a very unpleasant pain in the chest. Your day had been so nice why was this happening? It always happened! You fought the feeling and tried to stand up, angry at yourself for feeling this way. You felt panic about nothing. It started a long time ago, this bad moments where every breath seemed painful, but now that every thing was starting to go in your direction.. you would have imagined the oppressing feeling would go away but nooo of course not, the damn thing kept coming back. 

 

***TITITI* *TITITI***

   A loud ringing sound resonated through the room. You rose from the couch with a gasp of surprise and then a sigh passed your lips. Damn phone. You made a mental note to change this awful ringing tone. The crushing feeling in your chest slightly faded replaced by a growing nervousness. Who the hell could be calling you? Your parents had done so a few days ago and you always talked to your friends by messages, you rarely spoke on the phone. As you moved on the couch to grab the source of the unpleasant noise you noticed your eyes were watering. “Oh please!” you sighed. Inhaling deeply you took your phone in one hand wiping your face with the other trying to clear your voice and feel less like a stupid mess before answering. “Ok everything is cool you are ok no reason to panic” was your last comforting though before pressing the little green phone on your device and bringing it to your ear with a faint “Hey”.

“HELLO HUMAN! DID I WAKE YOU? YOU SOUND LIKE YOU ARE UNDERWATER.”

Wait this voice, you recognized it! Was it really the nice skeleton from earlier, so soon? You checked quickly your phone to be sure. You read “The Magnificent Sans”. Yep that was him and yes he had named his contact in your phone himself. You half smiled and answered wondering about his reason to call so late:

"- No no I was just working. Are you alright?

\- WELL YES I AM! I JUST HAD A BRILLIANT IDEA, FRIEND. I TOLD MY BROTHER ALL ABOUT OUR GRANDIOSE SNOW BATTLE AND HE EMITTED THE THOUGH OF INVITING YOU TO OUR HOME TO WITNESS MY STUNNING COOKING SKILLS, he explained in an enthusiastic and sweet tone."

You were a bit surprised but before you knew you told him in an almost equally animated voice:

“- Oh really? Well I would love that but I don’t want to bother you, are you sure that this is ok?

\- OF COURSE! I’M SO GLAD YOU AGREED, BUT OF COURSE KNOWING YOU WOULD TASTE MY DELICIOUS MEAL HOW COULD YOU REFUSE. SO COME BY OUR HOUSE ON FRIDAY I WILL INFORM THE ADDRESS TO YOU BY TEXT MESSAGE. BYE BYE HUMAN, he replied.”

 

   You had no time to answer before Sans ended the call. You smiled at your phone like it was the little monster you had just spoken to and put it down on a pillow next to you. Well that was quite unexpected! One thing your were struggling with oppressing feelings and then it all goes away with a phone call. You chuckled at that, feeling silly for what happened before Sans invited you. You got up and headed directly to your small kitchen to serve yourself a glass of water. You were going to go to Sans’s place on Friday and meet his brother of whom he spoke so fondly. That could only be nice! Of course you knew you would stress over it during the week, you were aware there was no reason to but anyway you would. But at that moment you felt good. This would break your routine and maybe help you out of this sort of heavy monotony. Along with the nice job at Salty Moon Cafe things were looking good. A pleasant job and meeting new apparently sweet people, what harm could this make? None of course. Well admitting that you managed to finish the food list and hoping that going to the home of two strangers wouldn’t turn up to be a very bad idea. A very nice stranger and his apparently nice brother indeed but still you knew nothing about them. Anyway you couldn’t care less. Things seemed to be brightening up.

   With that nice though in mind you finished the list for Om and prepared yourself for bed putting on comfy pajamas and grabbing a book to read before sleep. Under the nice blanket you felt warm and relaxed. It was so unusual it almost bothered you, but the distraction of the story you were diving into by opening your book was enough to pull your thoughts away from this consequent change of mood.

 

~~~

 

 

   The next days went by pretty quickly, as you had to work a lot to maintain your good grades and the fact of adding shift hours to your agenda didn’t help. Working with the employees of the Cafe was so nice that it was absolutely not a problem, you just felt more tired than usual. The insomnia was a bitch as ever but the bugging feelings of loneliness were much less recurrent then before. This improvement of your mood was probably linked with the fact that you often exchanged text messages with Sans. Actually you spoke every single day! The main topic of your discussions was your respective lives and the worlds you grew up in. Sans seemed to now very little about the human customs, and you were delighted to enlighten him. Your mind was so occupied by all the events piling up in your life, that you didn’t see the Friday night at your new friend’s house coming, until you were going back home from work the said day. The sun was setting beautifully and distracted you from the fact that you had to be to Sans’s place at 20:00 and today you had left Salty Moon Cafe later, at 19:30, so you had to hurry up. When you unlocked your phone to check the skeleton’s address it indicated 19:53. You blinked a few times thinking to yourself _Shit, shit, shit!_ , while realizing there was a great chance for you to be late. Forgetting immediately about making a stop to drop your bag you started running like your life depended on it.

 

A few minutes later a bright blue door stood in front of you. Despite huffing and puffing, you had a big smile on your face, proud for founding the house so easily, and in time. It was painted in orange and blue, the sun was almost set but the colors were still distinguishable. Pressing the bell to announce your arrival you remembered two of the skeleton’s friends were to come over to diner too. You were happy meeting new friendly monsters but it made you a bit nervous, would they like you? Wouldn’t you be a bother? But before you could think more of it the door opened before you. You turned your eyes to the door to meet Sans’s and smiled brightly happy to see the little monster full of joy. But your stare met only with orange fabric … what? You lifted your head surprised and realized that you were facing a hoodie worn by a tall, very tall, skeleton, who looked bored as HELL. Sans had told you that his friends were both girls, and this skeleton was surely male, was he his brother?

“- Herm… Hey! Are you Papyrus? you attempted, remembering the name, as Sans talked a lot about his brother.

\- yep, and you’re y/n right? he replied lazily moving from were he stood to let you enter the house.

\- Hum hum”

That was all you managed to respond, as you passed through the door and looked around you. You could feel his look on your back and tried to find something to say, your intention being to make the situation less awkward. You cursed at your lack of socialization skill and asked, clearing your throat:

“- Uh, is Sans here?

\- nope, we had trouble cooking diner so he went out to buy some pizza, he answered with a grin. Seems like you just ran for hours, wanna come sit on the couch?”

 

   His question was followed by a half smile, the skeleton was obviously making fun of your untidy state. Papyrus didn’t seem to share the uneasy feeling that run down your back, and appeared to be perfectly at ease in this situation, of being alone with someone he didn’t knew. It made you feel a bit less uncomfortable and you nodded at him, responding to his previous question. The tall skeleton made his way to the living room and, as you followed him, the image of the little hyperactive twin brother of Sans that you had made up in your mind was erased, replaced by almost the exact opposite. When entering the living room you saw a large couch and two armchairs. Papyrus sat on the couch, dropping heavily, seeming very tired. He turned to you and patted the sit next to him, inviting you to join him.

“- if you want to drink something suit yourself, he added pointing to the bottles and glasses laying on the coffee table before him.

\- Thanks! you answered. I thought I would be late but it ends up I’m actually early.

\- did you run to be in time here? he inquired with a chuckle.

\- Is it that obvious? you laughed lightly sitting on the couch and trying to find a bottle of water amongst the others.

As you found what you were looking for, Papyrus passed two glasses to you. You filled them with the content of the bottle you were holding. You talked a little bit about the friends that were coming over and you now knew that they were a couple. During this chat you also realized that Papyrus had an obvious liking for bad puns, and that you couldn’t stop laughing whenever he slipped one of them during your conversation. His: “ _Ti-bia_ honest, I felt to tired to stay with you tonight but Sans forced me to” had had the best of you. Was it that funny? Probably not but you found yourself tearing up as you laughed, maybe the demanding week wasn’t helping you to control your brain. When you had calmed down he was looking a you with a proud half smile and a smug expression. “oh so i’m that funny?” He had teased and the conversation had continued, as you found yourself to be more and more at ease.

   At 20:30 Papyrus received a text from Sans informing you that he would be home with Undyne and Alphys, their friends, at 21:00. With this information the tall skeleton decided to take a quick nap. Before your actions were processed by your brain, you had put a pillow on your knees expecting him to put his head there. And then it hit you, offering to someone you kew for half an hour to sleep on your lap wasn’t the best thing to do. But before you could say anything you saw a smile cross his face as he laid on his back adjusting to rest on the pillow and murmuring: “well that’s nice of you”. He closed his eyes pretty quickly, as you chuckled at his satisfied face. He was made of bones … obviously duh… but his facial expressions were surprisingly easy to read.

You stopped thinking for some time as you detailed his face. Papyrus seemed to have fallen as soon as he closed his eyes so you dared to lean in a little closer. You started to wonder what his bones felt like. Oh you knew this was a bad idea, but you allowed the tip of your finger to brush along his jaw. Oh my! He was SO smooth! Surprisingly smooth and not even cold. His jaw opened slightly as he exhaled and you noticed for the first time in the evening that his canines were huge. It was so impressive that you whispered to yourself: “Wow are those fangs?”. And when you heard him reply with the biggest smirk ever: “yeah, wanna touch them too?”, your hand jolted back and you let out a little “Ow sorry!”, to which he laughed lightly seemingly absolutely not upset with your curiosity. You smiled sheepishly in an apologizing way, as you felt your cheeks grow hot and probably very red.

   “Well if you allow me why not” you replied, raising an eyebrow in an exaggerated way, some confidence coming back. But at the exact same time as he showed off his teeth chuckling and your hand was about a few inches from them he door opened with a loud BAM! Followed by the voice of Sans: “I’M HOME BROTHER! I HOPE YOU HAVEN’T BOTHERED OUR NEW FRIEND.” After his announcement he turned, there was no time for either of you to move and his smile left his face replaced by a very confused stare. A rather short dinosaurish monster bursted into a powerful laughter behind him, the taller fish-girl next only covering her face to hide her small shy smile. You were to confused to react to this unexpected chain of events, as Papyrus was about to speak you silently praid for him to get you out of this situation that, despite being quiet amusing, could lead to some misunderstanding. Unfortunatly the superior beings didn’t seem to be on you side because wath left the tall skeleton’s mouth was a not very convincing: “bro, really, this is not what it seems”. Good lord, this had to be the lamest thing to say right now!

Sans rose an eyebrow, the laughs still filling the room behind him. Well… as expected none of them seemed very convinced.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading and have a nice day or anything! >w<  
> Salut!


End file.
